While I agree with the broad thrust of that, it does mean we need to pay more taxes.
When the welfare state was established you would start work at 16, work for 50 years and then die ten years later. 5 years of work to fund each year of retirement.
Nowadays its more typical to start work at 21, retire at 65 and live for 20 years - 2.2 years of work for each year of retirement.
So we can raise the retirement age - and we've seen the shitshow that would cause - or we increase taxes, which is never popular.